A reader wants to know, “Is it better for a young family (couple plus two children) to live in a rented flat rather than to buy a home with a 20-25-year mortgage?” Buying a house is often an emotional decision; as I have argued before, it makes no sense to use buy vs rent calculators. …
Continue reading →Here is how you can review your retirement portfolio in seven easy steps. If you have not yet created a proper retirement plan, you can quickly do so using the freefincal robo advisor. The robo advisor can handle up to three post-retirement income streams; provide an automated asset allocation schedule to reduce sequence of returns…
Continue reading →Over the years, many have asked us, “How can we be sure of the assumptions used in retirement planning?” For example, a reader writes, “One of the big unknowns is the real expense during retirement. We can make an educated guess based on current living expenses, etc. However, surprises are likely to come and be…
Continue reading →This ETF screener is based on tracking errors and differences (ETF return minus index return). It will help users evaluate how efficiently an ETF has tracked its underlying benchmark. The tracking error is the ETF’s standard deviation minus index monthly return differences. The lower the tracking error, the more efficient the ETF is in following…
Continue reading →We discuss how to deploy money in a retirement bucket strategy. A bucket strategy is a post-retirement investment plan to manage inflation-protected withdrawals (income) and investments for the near and long term. So, we have investments purely for income generation (regular withdrawal), fixed income, and equity investments. Retirement buckets are mental partitions of these investments….
Continue reading →In this article, we answer some questions on health insurance asked by listeners of the “Let’s Get Rich with Pattu” podcast. These are also FAQs that we receive from time to time from our readers. Q: This concerns the medical Insurance episode on Let’s Get Rich with Pattu. I’m a private sector employee and have…
Continue reading →In this edition of the reader story, we meet a reader who started with multiple thematic funds, learnt his lesson, and now streamlined his portfolio with three funds. About this series: I am grateful to readers for sharing intimate details about their financial lives for the benefit of readers. Some of the previous editions are linked…
Continue reading →This is a National Pension Scheme Fund Screener to shortlist consistently performing NPS schemes. You can also spot NPS schemes with a higher return than a benchmark at a lower risk. This is similar in design to the freefincal Equity Mutual Fund Performance Screener. Inside, you get discounted links to our robo advisory tool and…
Continue reading →Understanding risk is essential to effective investing and money management. The way investment risk is perceived and handled has a pervasive impact on investment performance. Hence, it would be beneficial to develop a holistic understanding of how investment risk works. Let us now look at answers to some of the most commonly asked questions about…
Continue reading →If the markets move up over a few weeks, investors are worried that they will crash and wonder if they should stop fresh investments. If the market moves nowhere, it frustrates investors, who start looking for new pastures. If the markets tumble, they begin to panic. Can we build an investment strategy that is independent…
Continue reading →The latest freefincal Equity Mutual Fund Performance Screener is now available. Use it to screen for consistently performing equity mutual funds. You can screen based on fund category & benchmark and spot mutual funds with a higher return than a benchmark at a lower risk. Inside, you get discounted links to our robo advisory tool…
Continue reading →AI, particularly AI with deep research options (e.g., Perplexity, Gemini, Grok, etc.), can handle the most complex questions and provide amazing answers. Perplexity Pro (free for iitm users) even has an option to search from only academic sources, which I use if I ask it health-related questions. Please note: I fully understand that AI can…
Continue reading →Often, clients and advisors have conflicting views that result in friction and typically a break in the relationship. This can easily be avoided if both parties clearly explain their viewpoint and meet on common ground. Take, for example, a situation we encountered recently. The client has more than Rs. one crore in regular plan funds….
Continue reading →In India, not everyone can offer investment advice. They must first be registered as an investment adviser (RIA) with SEBI. Once registered, they must act as a fiduciary – meaning they must always put the client first. In other words, prescribe only commission-free products (those that come under SEBI) if the adviser charges fixed fees…
Continue reading →The growth of AI-based tools is astounding and alarming. I was recently sent a CT report of a hospitalised relative with multiple findings that seemed to require medical attention. I was curious to learn more. It is inadvisable to do this, but some of us have a curious itch to scratch (and suffer the consequences)….
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